Heterodoxy within Second-Temple Judaism and Sectarian Diversity within the Early Church (2008 Russell), book

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Heterodoxy within Second-Temple Judaism and Sectarian Diversity within the Early Church: A Correlative Study is abook by Peter J. Russell.

Abstract

"Scholars continue to be divided in their response to the evidence on the Church's early history. Until F C Baur, the 19th-century theologian, it was believed that the Church developed as a strife-free, united organization... This work overturns previously accepted theories about the rise of the first-century Church by arguing that it maintained a religious culture of diversity because of its roots in Judaism. Diversity in early Christian groups was not caused by a rift that had occurred between the leading protagonists Peter, Paul and James. It was in fact because the church founders, being Jewish, had based their church upon the contemporary synagogue tradition of Palestine and the Diaspora. Each congregation was independently governed and had equal rights along with all the others as long as they followed the law and acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah."--Publisher description.

Editions

Published in Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2008.

Contents

Foreword / Dan Cohn-Sherbok

Introduction

• 1. Historical Basis for Diversity in Second Temple Judaism
• 2. Divisions and the Maccabaean Crisis
• 3. Religious Diversity within Judaism as a Consequence of the Hasmonaean Monarchy
• 4. Apocalyptic and the Further Increase in Religious Diversity
• 5. Diversity in the Early Church: The Church in Jerusalem
• 6. Antioch and Galatia
• 7. The Church in Corinth

Conclusion

Bibliography -- Indices